you should travel more. live in US sucks compared to that in EU. an expat in US. if I did not love my job so much, i would swim back to EU and its unions, job security, universal health care and education, maternity and paternity leaves and so. there many problems in europe but quality of life is not one of them.

Serious answer: I didn’t want to marry someone my dad’s age. Nobody my age that I know is making it on one income.

Oh god, the debt! I didn’t even think about pthat. I walked out of the hospital with a baby and and $8k bill. I’m fortunate to not have any student debt but I was soooo pissed when I saw that damn hospital bill.

Hi! Single working mother here! I keep reading a lot of articles like these about how women balance work and parenting in positive and negative ways. Many of the articles do not take into account single parents. Who is there to balance my work and home life? Who is there to keep up the home while the breadwinner wins…

God, all of this. Every article about being a working mom is “I love my job! I love working!”

Amen! They work much shorter work weeks in Europe, men and women alike, and they’re not less productive than us. The truth is, we’re all burned out. And this fixation on whether it’s because of too many women working, or whether men aren’t shouldering enough of the burden, isn’t the answer. I’m starting to wonder, in…

I’m only at 40 hrs./week, but wow, I really do feel the same sentiment. I really feel that just having the ability to work 4 days a week would take a lot of pressure off. Week after week, I am constantly running around in circles between work/running the house in the evenings/errands on the weekend. I always feel like…

I’ve been a single mom and a married mom. I have friends who don’t want kids and friends who do want kids and feel like they can’t afford them. We talk to each other. WE ARE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT. We are all burned out, making not enough money, being told to work more and more and more for less and less payout. I get…

then what exactly is your point? 

It seems like literally all of the focus when it comes to the question of working moms is on those with the highest level careers and I’ll getting sick of it. I have to work. Full stop, no question, otherwise the bills wont get paid. But I don’t give a shit about my career and when I was pregnant I desperately…

“ I feel like our generation “struggles” more because we are more than ever moving to cities and living more extravigant/expensive lifestyles than our parents.”

My husband is all but begging me to have a kid, but quite apart from me having zero desire to do so (and having been crystal clear about that since literally our first date), I have no idea how we would find the time or money. We’re both underemployed lawyers and our combined debt from school is approaching $500,000.…

English and Welsh (Scotland has differently timed breaks and I don’t know about NI) schools have 5-6 weeks in summer. 2 weeks at xmas and 2 weeks at easter. Then there are half terms- each a week and there are three- Oct, Feb and May. A school year has 39weeks.

While we’re at the 3 months federally-paid caregiver leave (because folks need to take care of someone, whether it’s a newborn or a parent with dementia), we also need to tackle the school day and the school calendar.

This is a harsh but true take. Women can guilt other women with “why have kids to have someone else raise them?” or whatever nonsense they throw out there, but if you want what is best for you and your kids long term, you must keep working. Some fields let you take a break more than others, but there are no guarantees…

This is an important article and I thank you for writing it. One of the glaring issues I see is the lack of mandatory parental leave, paternal and maternal, in almost every sector. I work in public education in a fairly union-strong state, and was granted 2 “birth in the immediate family” days after my child was born.…

I’m a working mom with a terminal degree in a competitive field. I am absolutely miserable with being expected to be in the office ~50 hours a week. I have great childcare and my husband holds his own, the issue is that I want to spend more time with my kids. And I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I want to be there…

Here’s my hot take: it’s a mistake to be a stay at home mom (or dad). I don’t think it always a mistake, but I absolutely think that in the current work environment it’s an enormous mistake.

If we would just give federal mandated maternity/paternity leave of at least 3 months as well as getting some real wage growth, then motherhood wouldn’t be putting so much strain on us.

There is a lot of evidence to support that our fight for equal pay (as women) has brought our families less money overall and made our daily life jobs more rigorous. We had to fight that fight, though, because of domestic violence in the home, to better support families by enabling women the economic opportunity to…